Mrs Morgan also toured the ground-breaking School, the first 11-18 university training school in the country, which is situated in a purpose-built facility on the University of Birmingham’s Selly Oak campus. Drawing its pupils from across the city, the School’s vision is to ensure the School community reflects the diversity of the city of Birmingham and transforms the lives of its pupils by raising aspirations.

Expertise and research

It welcomed its first pupils in September last year, with an intake of 150 year 7 pupils and 200 lower sixth formers. It will grow to its full capacity of 1,150 pupils by 2020. Pupils will benefit from a wide range of opportunities, including access to facilities, expertise and research at the University of Birmingham itself.

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said: “I am delighted to be opening the University of Birmingham School, which I hope will become a beacon of academic excellence in the West Midlands. We are determined to spread educational excellence everywhere and at the heart of this is empowering our best institutions – including universities – to be able to open free schools in order to use their expertise to transform the lives of children.’

Fact file

As the first secondary University Training School in the country, the University of Birmingham School will be a centre for initial and on-going teacher education and training and research into improving educational practice.

Trainee placements for students from the School of Education will be offered as the School’s pupil numbers grow, and they will learn their craft alongside experienced and qualified teachers, with the School operating in a similar way to teaching hospitals. The University currently educates 350 new teachers a year and its teacher training provision has been rated as “outstanding” by Ofsted.

The School was the most popular state secondary school in Birmingham ahead of its opening, with 1,200 applications for 150 places in year seven. For the 2016/17 academic year, this figure exceeds 1,500.